Tuesday, December 31, 2013

It's that time of year again. December has come and with it all the joys
of Christmas. But what is the real meaning of Christmas? Is it the gifts under
the tree, the lights in the windows, the cards in the mail, turkey dinners with
family and friends, snow in the yard, stockings hanging in the living room, and
shouts of "Merry Christmas" to those who pass us in the streets? Is
this really Christmas?
For many people, Christmas is a time of sorrow. They
don't have the extra money to buy presents for their children, family, and friends.
Many are saddened at Christmastime when they think of their loved ones who will
not be able to come home for various reasons. Turkey dinners may be only a wish
and not a reality for some.

Yet, Christmas can be a season of great joy.
It is a time of God showing His great love for us. It can be a time of healing
and renewed strength. You see, Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of the
Christ child. God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to be born. His birth brought
great joy to the world. Shepherds, wise men, and angels all shared in the excitement
of knowing about this great event. They knew this was no ordinary baby. The prophets
had told of His coming hundreds of years before. The star stopped over Bethlehem
just to mark the way for those who were looking for this special child.

Why
did He come? Why did God send His son to this sometimes cruel and hard world?
He sent Jesus to us so that one day, He would grow up to become a very important
part of history. His story (history) is one of truth, love, and hope. It brought
salvation to all of us. Without Jesus, we would all die in our sins.
Jesus
was born so one day the price could be paid for the things we have done that are
wrong. The Bible says that all have sinned. We are all born with a sin nature.
We do things that do not please God. Through the sins of Adam and Eve, we have
all inherited that sin nature. We need to have that removed. The only way is through
Jesus. Jesus came so He could die on the cross for ALL of our sins. If we believe
that Jesus died for our sins, we can ask Him to come into our hearts and forgive
us. Then, we are clean and made whole. We can know that heaven is a place where
we can go to when this life is over.

"But if we confess
our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from
every wrong." I John 1:9

We can truly be happy at Christmas! No
matter what may be happening, we can know that we are His children. We then become
sons and daughters of God. Heaven will be our home one day.
Look at Christmas
in a new way this year. This is the year to invite Jesus into your heart. You
will then have a "Merry Christmas." The joy and peace you will receive
will last all year as you look to God for all your needs to be met.

The History of Chocolate

The
first recorded evidence of chocolate as a food product goes back to
Pre-Columbian Mexico. The Mayans and Aztecs were known to make a drink
called "Xocoatll from the beans of the cocoa tree. In 1528, the
conquering Spaniards returned to Spain with chocolate still consumed as a
beverage. A similar chocolate drink was brought to a royal wedding in
France in 1615, and England welcomed chocolate in 1662. To this point
"chocolate" as we spell it today, had been spelled variously as
"chocalatall, "jocolatte", "jacolatte", and "chockelet.11
In 1847, Fry & Sons in England introduced the first
"eating chocolate," but did not attract much attention due to its bitter
taste. In 1874, Daniel Peter, a famed Swiss chocolateer, experimented
with various mixtures in an effort to balance chocolates rough flavor,
and eventually stumbled upon that abundant product -- milk. This
changed everything and chocolate's acceptance after that was quick and
enthusiastic.

GROWING COCOA BEANS

Cocoa
beans are usually grown on small plantations in suitable land areas 20
degrees north or south of the Equator.
One mature cocoa tree can be expected to yield about five pounds of
chocolate per year. These are planted in the shade of larger trees such
as bananas or mangos, about 1000 trees per hectare (2,471 acres).
Cocoa trees take five to eight years to mature. After
harvesting from the trees, the pods (which contain the cocoa beans) are
split open, beans removed, and the beans are put on trays covered with
burlap for about a week until they brown. Then they are sun dried until
the moisture content is below 7%. This normally takes another three
days.
After cleaning, the beans are weighed, selected and blended before
roasting at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours. Then shells are
removed leaving the "nib." Nibs are crushed to create a chocolate
"mass." This is the base raw material from which all chocolate products
are made.

KINDS OF CHOCOLATE

Milk Chocolate

This
consists of at least 10% chocolate liquor ("raw" chocolate pressed from
carob nibs) and 12% milk solids combined with sugar, cocoa butter (fat
from nibs), and vanilla.
Sweet and Semi-Sweet Chocolate
Are made from 15-35% chocolate liquor, plus sugar, cocoa butter, and
vanilla. Imprecision of the two terms causes them to commonly be called
"dark" or "plain" chocolate. Dark chocolate has a large following
among dessert makers, and for this reason is referred to as "baking"
chocolate.Bittersweet and Bitter Chocolate

Bittersweet
usually contains 50% chocolate liguor and has a distinct "bite" to the
taste. Bitter or unsweetened chocolate liquor also is used in baking
and is also referred to as "bakers" chocolate.Creams and Variations

Bite sized and chocolate covered. They are filled with caramels, nuts, creams, jellies, and so forth.White Chocolate

Is
not really chocolate as it contains no chocolate liquor,
Carob
This is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean
evergreen. It is used by some as a substitute for chocolate because it
can be combined with vegetable fat and sugar, and made to approximately
the color and consistency of chocolate.

HOW CHOCOLATES ARE MADE

There are four basic methods of coating chocolate onto something such as caramel or a nut.

They are:

Enrobing

Least expensive method. Centers are carried by conveyer through a machine that showers them with chocolate.

Panning

Chocolate is sprayed on the centers as they rotate in revolving pans, then cool air is blown in pan to harden the chocolates.

Dipping

Generally done by hand by small scale producers.
Shell Moldinq
Most sophisticated method. Used for most sculptural chocolates. The
process consists of many intricate steps, thus causing it to be more
expensive than other methods.

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that
remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter.
Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with
pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over
their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that
evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.
In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the
year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter
solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that
winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak.
They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god
would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green
plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer
would return.
The ancient Egyptians
worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun
as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to
recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green
palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.
Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia
in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the
solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful.
To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with
evergreen boughs. In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests
of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs
as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas
tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout
Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built
Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and
candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther,
the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a
tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he
was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To
recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room
and wired its branches with lighted candles.
Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The
first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German
settlers of Pennsylvania,
although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier.
The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as
1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan
symbols and not accepted by most Americans.
It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs,
the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans,
Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims's second governor, William Bradford,
wrote that he tried hard to stamp out "pagan mockery" of the
observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell
preached against "the heathen traditions" of Christmas carols, decorated
trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated "that sacred event."
In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts
enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church
service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations.
That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx
of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.
In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince,
Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their
children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family,
Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court
immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with
fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had
arrived.
By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and
Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted
that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while
Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.
The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly
with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use
apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed
bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts. Electricity brought
about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow
for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town
squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home
became an American tradition.

The Advent wreath, or Advent crown, is a Christian tradition that symbolizes the passage of the four weeks of Advent in the liturgical calendar of the Western church. The Advent Wreath is traditionally a Lutheran practice, although it has spread to many other Christian denominations.
It is usually a horizontal evergreenwreath with four candles
and often, a fifth, white candle in the center. Beginning with the
First Sunday of Advent, the lighting of a candle can be accompanied by a
Bible reading and prayers. An additional candle is lit during each
subsequent week until, by the last Sunday before Christmas, all four candles are lit. Many Advent wreaths include a fifth, Christ candle which is lit at Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.The custom is observed both in family settings and at public church services.

THE MEANING OF THE ADVENT WREATH

Most Advent wreaths use three colors – purple, pink, and white. However, some may use blue in place of the purple.

1st CANDLE – (purple) THE PROPHECY CANDLE or CANDLE OF HOPE – We can have hope because God is faithful and will keep the promises made to us. Our hope comes from God. “And
again, Isaiah says, ‘The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will
arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him.’ May the
God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that
you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:12-13)

2nd CANDLE – (purple) THE BETHLEHEM CANDLE or THE CANDLE OF PREPARATION
– God kept his promise of a Savior who would be born in Bethlehem.
Preparation means to “get ready”. Help us to be ready to welcome YOU, O
GOD! “As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
‘A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every
mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the
rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation.‘ (Luke 3:4-6)

3rd CANDLE – (pink) THE SHEPHERD CANDLE or THE CANDLE OF JOY – The angels sang a message of JOY! “…and
she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and
placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch
over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and
the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But
the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of
great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a
Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign
to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel,
praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men on whom his favor rests.’ When the angels had left them and
gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to
Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told
us about.” (Luke 2:7-15)

4th CANDLE – (purple) THE ANGEL CANDLE or THE CANDLE OF LOVE – The angels announced the good news of a Savior. God sent his only Son to earth to save us, because he loves us! “For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world
through him.” (John 3:16-17)

5th CANDLE – (white) “CHRIST CANDLE”
– The white candle reminds us that Jesus is the spotless lamb of God,
sent to wash away our sins! His birth was for his death, his death was
for our birth! “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!‘” (John 1:29)

“Now there was a man of the
Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He
came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know you are a
teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous
signs you are doing if God were not with him.’ In reply Jesus declared,
‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is
born again.’ ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ Nicodemus asked.
‘Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be
born!’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the
kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives
birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be
surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows
wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it
comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the
Spirit.‘” (John 3:1-8)